This zoning map shows the Greater Holyoke YMCA at 171 Pine St., the lot across the street formerly occupied by the Farr Mansion where the YMCA wants to install a parking lot and surrounding properties.
((MAP BY GREG SAULMON))

Also, the council will consider whether to ask the state attorney general to investigate the separation agreement that Mayor Alex B. Morse made last year with former city solicitor Heather G. Egan that paid her $45,000.

Follow along as live coverage of the 7 p.m. City Council meeting at City Hall is posted in the comments section under this story.

The YMCA at 171 Pine St. has petitioned for a zone change for a lot it owns across the street at 399 Appleton St. to convert it into a 21-space parking lot.

The lot's current zone, Downtown Residential, prohibits a commercial parking lot, and the YMCA has requested it be changed to Downtown Business zone.

While the YMCA and its supporters, including some councilors, have said the facility needs and deserves the additional parking to serve its 4,000 members, neighbors have disagreed.

Neighbors have said changing the zone in this case would establish spot zoning and that would be detrimental to the neighborhood.

Spot zoning is the singling out of one lot for different treatment from that accorded to similar surrounding land indistinguishable from it in character, all for the economic benefit of the owner of that lot.

A zone change normally requires approval from a two-thirds majority of the 15-member City Council, or 10 yes votes.

But the city Law Department has determined that a protest petition filed by neighbors against the proposed zone change is valid. Because of that, the threshold of approval has increased to three-quarters of the City Council, or 12 votes.

The protest petition was determined to be valid because the petitioners represent owners of 20 percent or more of the land immediately adjacent to and extending 300 feet from the land proposed to be included in the proposed zone change, Assistant City Solicitor Kara Cunha said in a letter to the council dated Monday.

Part of the rift between the YMCA and some neighbors and others concerns the now-vacant lot. Until January 2014, it had been occupied since 1881 by a home known as the Farr Mansion. Some said the building could have been renovated into another use of more value to the neighborhood than a parking lot.

The YMCA had the building demolished after officials said renovating the Farr Mansion into another use would have been too expensive and would have failed to meet the facility's parking needs.

Regarding the Morse-Egan separation agreement, the council will discuss an order referred out of the Public Service Committee. It asks for an investigation "to make sure there was nothing unethical, illegal or improper associated with said payment."

"The investigation would focus on the reason (s) the payment was made to guarantee that it was made in the best interests of the taxpayers of the city of Holyoke," the order said.

Egan resigned for personal reasons April 29, Morse has said, about 14 months after the mayor appointed her as head of the Law Department.

The separation agreement they executed included a non-public disclosure clause that has led to Morse and Egan refusing to say why the agreement included a cash payment.

--Administration officials feared Egan would argue the city's inability to accommodate her caused a chronic medical condition to get worse, and because of that, she would sue.

--Egan questioned changes Morse was proposing at the License Board and she discussed possibly filing a whistleblower lawsuit.

--Egan threatened to go public with concerns that Morse permitted Rory Casey, who is now the mayor's chief of staff but at the time wasn't a city employee, to participate in negotiations with MGM Resorts International on benefits Holyoke should get as a neighboring community to the gaming giant's planned $800 million casino in Springfield.

Morse said he did what was in the city's best interest in establishing the agreement to severe city ties with Egan. He disputed assertions that Casey's participation in the casino talks was wrong and said Casey's involvement helped the city.

Egan declined to identify the lawsuits she might have filed had the separation agreement not included a payment. She said the agreement and $45,000 payment had nothing to do with a leave she had planned to take in April.

She was unable to comment on the assertion that Casey's involvement in the casino mitigation discussions was enough of a concern that it became partly why she required a separation agreement include a payment, Egan said.